Alderwood House School – social emotional learning for life, outdoors in Richmond, British Columbia

Steveston Society of Children’s Centres

History

SSOCC was created in order to ensure that the Alderwood House School program would be able to continue and expand, regardless of changes to BC’s child care landscape. SSOCC entered into an agreement to purchase AHS – London in 2018, and in 2019, SSOCC began to expand the Alderwood House program by opening Alderwood House – Southlands.

Vision

SSOCC holds Alderwood House School’s vision of outdoor based, Reggio-inspired child care programs that focus on social-emotional learning. Alderwood House School founder, Pamela Wallberg, first imagined the possibility of what Alderwood could become when she learned of the Blueberry Atelier in Santa Monica (now the Branches Atelier), during a visit to the Wonder of Learning. The idea of a small, residential learning environment that was a licensed group program rather than an in-home program was an exciting idea, one that Pamela revisited multiple times only to put on hold as she waited for the right opportunity to realize this dream.

SSOCC seeks to bring Pamela’s vision to life, building a network of small licensed group child care programs operating out of residential homes. A new concept to BC, this approach to licensed group child care offers families some of the many advantages that in-home child care programs provide young children: small-group sizes, home-like environment and flexible and responsive community based programming. Yet, as part of a network of licensed group child care programs, this approach will still provide the professional training to Educators, the Alderwood curriculum, pooled resources between programs, and licensed group programs (including the ACCB funding and infant toddler or preschool age groupings) that are more commonly associated with larger group centres.

Who we are

The Steveston Society of Children’s Centres is a not-for-profit organization operating in Richmond and Vancouver, BC. Our board has hired Pamela Wallberg as the Pedagogical Coordinator for the growing Alderwood network of programs, as her dream of what child care can be is realized under the SSOCC umbrella. SSOCC supports Pamela and the Alderwood teaching team with our decades of not-for-profit and market-based child care operational experience, child and youth outreach work and, of course, parents who care about quality education.

SSOCC is committed to engaging in outdoor education, social-emotional learning and trauma-informed practice.

SSOCC recognizes the value of ECE’s in a child and family’s life and will continue the work that Alderwood House School Inc began in 2017 when it first began advocacy efforts for ECE’s in BC. SSOCC is proud to be a fair-wage employer, paying ECE’s pay parity with the school district, offering competitive benefits and work conditions that address the need for mentorship, professional development and designated time for program planning, classroom prep, and pedagogical narration. Licensed ECEs and ITEs looking for employment with SSOCC can send their resumes to alderwoodinformation@alderwoodhouse.com.

SSOCC is actively seeking funders to support the creation of new Alderwood spaces in Vancouver and Richmond. Interested donors or partners can write alderwoodinformation@alderwoodhouse.com.

Contact Us

Our classrooms are not open to the public outside of our registered open house times. Please do not drop by the classrooms for more information. We check our email often, and this is the fastest way to contact us.